Tngai-prohours (Thursday)

We are learning more Khmer every day! Today Channa taught me the days of the week. Tomorrow we will have our first official Khmer lessons as part of training, which is exciting. We are hoping that when they teach us some of the grammar, we will be able to pick things up a bit quicker.


This is how my day started!

Channa killed this late last night, so when I went for a shower this morning I got a bit of a shock. Its about the same size as my thumb. 

But otherwise it's been a day of interesting sessions, good experiences and good food. And we didn't have to sit still in sessions for too long. 

The first session this morning was on the history of Cambodia. They have been through several different regimes since the 19th Century. One, under King Sihanouk, was very good for the country, and many of the others have been incredibly harmful. The man giving the session warned us not to ask our host families about the Khmer rouge, as many people have at least one family member killed during Pol Pot's regime. 

It was a very interesting and helpful session. 

This afternoon, after another nice lunch, we had to fill out a survey to see which host family we will be placed with and which counterpart we will be given. No one who has a Khmer room mate wants to change! We all love our current counterparts. If they needed us to change we would adapt but we are all getting on so well. This evening, Evie got us to play a name game with someone we hadn't spoken to before, and it was a challenge to find someone because we have all mixed very well as a team already. Not all the UK and Khmer teams have managed to bond into one Community team yet, so I feel very grateful to be part of one that has.

After the surveys, we decided to go for a walk, as there was no more training after 3pm. Tim, Zaynab, Alex and I went to see the river, and we took some Khmer along with us, which was just as well as the roads here are crazy and they know how to cross them. (I was going to say in a way that is safe, but the safe way to cross a Khmer road is not to cross it). The children learn how to ride motorbikes at age 8 from their parents, and there is no regulation of licensing. I have seen 5 people on one scooter before.

Anyway here are some pictures of our beautiful walk:

After this, we went back to the hotel (it's about 40 mins walk from the river) and played the name game I mentioned, and then discovered we were going back to the river for a team meal. It's hard here for those with dietary requirements - the Khmer often do not understand what these are, and one of their main flavourings is fish paste, which is obviously not vegetarian or vegan. 

Other than a few issues with these kinds of things, the food was very good, and the restaurant had far less bugs than the night market last night! We also joked a lot together as a team. It felt really natural and easy and it was so nice to see everyone getting on well. 

On the way back we got more coconut juice. I didn't get any as I want to conserve my allowance for now, but it's the coldest, cheapest safe drink around - ice is unsafe and cans of pop can vary from 2000 riel (50UScents) to $4, depending on how much the vendor thinks they can get! In the foreground of this photo is (L-R) Channa  Heng, Votey and Tim.

Lea hi!